The Influence of Media Platforms on Sport Reputation: An Australian Football League Case Study

Media plays a considerable role in the branding for, and reputation of, sport organizations, clubs, and athletes. Both traditional and social media have an influence on the dialogue that shapes a sport's brand and influences its reputation. In Australia, the biggest locally supported sport code is the Australian Football League (AFL), which has a strong emphasis on brand and reputation, resulting from advanced professionalism and commercialization. The game-day adjudicators, AFL umpires, are an integral part of the AFL brand, as they are a visual representation of the AFL officialdom to the spectators and the viewing public for each game. The AFL appears to believe the code has an umpire-reputation problem that is limiting umpire recruitment. The paper aims to analyze and measure traditional and social media commentaries on AFL umpires and to suggest media-management strategies to improve umpire reputation.